Of Happiness and Bridges
by lotus head
Summary: Haku's past up to his death in small glimpses. [Once upon a time, there was a land that was full of waves and wet and war.] EDITED!


**DISCLAMER **I don't own Naruto, duh. If I did, it would be full of pretty shonen ai, not icky Micheal Jackson/Orochimaru love. And Haku and Zabuza would be very much alive, and they would have fluffy fun with Kimimaro.

**WARNINGS **Spoilers. Mentions of blood.

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**.:::.Of Happiness and Bridges.:::.**

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_Regina Spektor- Music Box  
Life inside the music box ain't easy.  
The malots hit the gears are always turning  
And everyone inside the mechanism  
Is yearning to get out.  
And sing another melody completely  
So different from the one they're always singing  
I close my eyes and think that I have found me  
But then I feel mortality surround me.  
I want to sing another melody  
So different from the one I always sing._

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**O**nce upon a time, there was a land that was full of waves and wet and war. In this land, there was a little village. On the outskirts of the village there was a little farm. There was a little house on the little farm, and there was a little family living in the little house. The little family had a little boy, no older than the age of six. 

A loving mother and father. (check, the boy said.)  
A warm house and warm food. (check, the boy said.)  
Friends to play with. (check, the boy said.)  
Toys and candy and holidays to look forward to. (check, the boy said.)

And so the boy knew he had a happy life, because his six year old definition told him so.

---

The little boy had a wonderful mother. His father was wonderful too, but his mother was even more wonderful.

His mother was beautiful and young and kind. She had the prettiest hair, and it was long and black and fell like a soft curtain of night. If you closed your eyes, and smelled her hair and focused, you could smell the sea. Not the kind of sea where all you can smell is the dead fish and the salt, but the clean smell of the real sea, unaffected by mankind's sprawl of pollution.

The little boy loved his mother and her sea-hair more than anything else in the world.

His father tried not to be jealous- (because the little boy was only six, and six year olds tend to be obvious about that kind of thing)- and he tried not to show his disapproval. '_Besides that,_' the father thought, '_by now_ _he's too much like his mother, and the other villagers are already talking about how girly and weak he looks._'

But the boy was loved by his father regardless, and loved by his mother, and the boy did what he could to make them proud.

And lo, life was good for the little boy.

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One sunny, snowy winter morning, the little boy was playing by the stream. Because he always liked the water in the stream, even if it didn't smell quite like his mother's hair.

The little boy reached down to grab a pebble, one that was round and small and the prettiest shade of green. And the water felt different, although the pebble felt like pebbles always do. '_If not a little smoother,' _the boy thought.

And the boy discovered he could make the water do strange things.

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__Blood and tears and darkness. It snowed. It snowed. It snowed. _

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"_I'm so very lonely!" cried the little snow fairy, and he shivered as he looked at the never-ending expanse of cold white. No one answered him but the dead._

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Once upon a later time, the little boy was on a little bridge. The bridge was over a river, and the river was not quite so small. The boy wasn't quite so small either, but it had only been half a year and he was still thin, and right now he was mad at his stomach. It had recently stopped growling, and instead started _gnawing_, and he disliked that quite a bit because it felt like a monster was eating him from the inside out, and the cold made it feel like he was being eaten from the outside in, and the whole experience was quite unpleasant. 

The little boy was almost seven, but he decided he was no longer happy. Because his definition of 'happy' was still the same, but he no longer had any of those things.

A loving mother and father. (no, the boy said, because they're both dead.)  
A warm house and warm food. (no, the boy said, because I am cold and hungry.)  
Friends to play with. (no, the boy said, because everyone hates me. They won't play with someone they are afraid of.)  
Toys and candy and holidays to look forward to. (no, the boy said, because I have no toys, I have no candy, and I don't have anyone to celebrate with on the next holiday.)

And the boy wanted to cry, but he didn't, because he stopped that weeks ago, because he was a big boy now, and '_big boys don't cry,', _his father said.

_Footsteps…_

The footsteps stopped, abruptly, when two large feet appeared in front of the little boy's downcast eyes. The boy looked up to see a large man. With a very, _very_ large sword.

The boy was startled by the harsh words the man was speaking, but he was used to it and smiled at the man, just like he always would try to do. The man in turn was startled, but he stayed, and so the boy told the man the reality that he saw reflected. One of the only truths in the world that had showed its dark and cruel side to her beholders, this truth that---

"**_We have the same eyes."_**

---

And the little boy was startled again, when the large man told the little boy to follow him.

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The little boy was sitting at the entrance of a tent. This time, though, the boy was older, being eight, and he was proud to say he hadn't cried for over a year. '_This is because I'm a big boy,' _he reminded himself. 

The boy was happy. Because he still knew what was his happiness, and he had found new happiness, and the greatness of his happiness was such that he forgot about the time of no- happiness, and he almost forgot about the happiness that he had before, the happiness of his mother's sea-hair and of reaching for pebbles in the steam.

A loving mother and father. (I think Zabuza-sama can count as a father, the boy said, because I can't imagine him doing things like a mother.)  
A warm house and warm food. (Tents are more fun than houses, because it doesn't take as much work to keep it clean, the boy said.)  
Friends to play with. (Zabuza-sama plays with me everyday. Even if he calls it training, the boy said.)  
Toys and candy and holidays to look forward to. (I don't need those things anymore, because I am needed to do far more important things than eat candy like those children who DON'T have terribly important things to do, like saving the world from those big fat politicians, the boy said.)

---

The man popped out of the tent and in a rude manner told the little boy to_ 'start making breakfast, and wipe that stupid grin off your face.'_

And the boy smiled even wider at the man and started to light a fire, because he was used to the discourtesy and wasn't offended by it. He never had been, because even with his uncouth mannerisms the man was kinder than anyone else the little boy had met for such a long, long time.

And later that night, when the little boy was exhausted by training and the man was tired enough to sleep, only the trees making shadows on the tent bore witness as the boy's sleeping figure inched closer to the warm figure, and the man didn't wake up as he would have expected to because, much to his chagrin, he had grown to trust the boy completely.

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When the boy was much older, seven winters later, fighting a battle that never should have happened, he smiled and resigned himself to his fate. 

'_It's only fit,' _thought the boy, '_that my life would start and end on a bridge.'_

_

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The little snow fairy called out again. "I'm so very lonely!" he cried. _

_A voice called out to him. "Well," said the voice, "what do you want me to do about it?"_

_The little snow fairy was overcome with happiness at the sound of this voice, and this time he cried tears of joy. _

"_Nothing," he whispered, "I don't need you to do anything."_

" _I'm so very happy."_

_The little snow fairy's tears turned to snow, and the land of waves and wet and war was blessed with a pure white snow. The newly fallen snow covered up everything; it covered up the little footprints, it covered up what was stained by blood. And everything was a wonderful, perfect white._

_**

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"I'm so very happy." the boy whispered with his dying breaths.**_

And it started to snow.

**

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T.I.B.E.-sway- first version finished 1/10/2007. second version finished 2/6/2007 **

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Dun- dun- DONE! YAY! Um, sorry to be annoying. But I just HAD to edit it. Because this, I think, is the best fic I've ever written. So I went over it! In case you wanted to know--- which you probably don't… here's what I changed!

- added a few things, including the snow fairy crap. Why a fairy? I dunno. B-but it was so cute… I had to do it… FORGIVE MY BRAIN. IT KNOWS NOT WHAT IT DOES!  
- fixed grammar mistakes  
- fixed things that don't make sense  
- fixed the format

This was done for Haku's birthday, by the way. Which is on January 9th. So it was a day late the first time… wah.

And… yeah, I think that's it. If you didn't review when you read the other version, now you can review for this one::nudge, nudge::

…I'm sorry. I'm shameless in my quest for reviews…

Oh! And while I'm talking about reviews, thank you so much to the two who reviewed for the other one! Especially Invader Cereal's. It gave me a HUGE ego boost.

…and now that I'm looking at this insanely/annoyingly long author's note, I think I'll close up.

Please comment/criticize/compliment! It's all loved. ::nods::


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